2013: A look ahead at the exciting mobile landscape

Last week we shared our observations of Chetan Sharma’s Mobile 2013 event which looked into what next year has in store for the mobile industry. The mobile space is hot and there are lots of people looking into their iCrystalBall apps to predict the future. We thought we’d share some of the articles that we believe have the most interesting predictions:

At GigaOM, Stacey Higginbotham examines an intensified “chip wars” as makers of mobile device processors turn the heat up on each other; Kevin Fitchard looks at how the wireless carriers are planning to address increased demand for mobile data; and Kevin Tofel looks at how Wi-Fi will improve for consumers, enterprises and operators. Both Kevins’ predictions should be welcome news to Mobility PR client WeFi.

Some of our predictions

We spend all day involved in the trends and changes in mobile, and Mobility Public Relations has its own predictions for 2013. Here are a few:

In 2013 we’ll see the rise of mobile apps that interact with other apps installed on your device. Mobile apps are function based, letting people perform narrowly defined and specific tasks like check the weather, find a local merchant or check your bank account balance. But new capabilities will allow apps to communicate with one another, in effect creating new application suites that add more power to each task.

Emerging smartphone platforms like Firefox and Sailfish will embrace the mobile Web and HTML5. Because the availability of apps is a key factor that guides smartphone purchase decisions, HTML5 based apps will allow new smartphone platforms to more quickly level the playing field and make tens of thousands of apps available to their users. Existing smartphone platforms that may find themselves struggling, perhaps Windows Phone and BlackBerry, may also adopt this open Web approach, giving app stores their first significant threat.

The battle for who owns the digital wallet will kick into high gear as banks, credit card issuers, carriers, smartphone manufacturers and OS makers all vie to control mobile commerce. Will consumers and regulators step in to find a neutral entity to control the wallet? One thing we think is sure, despite advances by Isis and the smartphone makers, consumers’ trust in their financial institutions will eclipse mobile finance efforts by carriers and smartphone OEMs.

2013 may become the year of M2M communications, and smartphones will become another sensor platform extending the range of M2M networks and applications.

Mobile health will hit its tipping point in 2013 in the same way mobile banking did in 2012. With so many people using smartphones, hospital systems and physician networks will discover great inefficiencies by embracing already existing mobile health apps and inspiring the development of many more.

We welcome your comments on the predictions above and invite you to share your predictions for 2013.